Beijing And Its Angry Peasants

The Council on Foreign Relations has posted a thorough backgrounder on China's rural uprisings, which may have numbered as many as 150,000 in the last year:

There has been a clear increase in protests over the last decade. In 1994, there were 10,000 protests, according to China's Public Security Ministry; by 2003, there were some 58,000; and in 2004 there were 74,000 incidents involving some 3.76 million people. Even these figures are "probably underreported," Segal says. Cohen says the 2004 figure has probably doubled in the last year, putting the number of 2005 protests at over 150,000. "Most of these incidents arise from local dissatisfaction," says Cohen. "The common thread is that when people seek to make their grievances known—by petitioning government offices or going to court—they are often frustrated by the runarounds, delays, excuses, and inaction they face there." That frustration feeds local ferment, which leads to collective action.

Is a revolution possible?

The central government's greatest fear is that a charismatic leader will arise and unify the protesters. If unified, the rural unhappiness over corruption, overdevelopment, and income inequality—combined with urban worker and student grievances—could be a tremendously powerful social force. But experts say the revolution is not quite here yet. "It's clear the protests are becoming bigger and there are more of them, but there's no risk of them overthrowing the Communist Party because there's no coordination between them," Segal says. He says any group that attempted to link the protests or reach across regional lines would be dealt with very severely by the authorities.

Beijing's thumb is big and presses hard. There have been many times when a hope of freedom for the Chinese seemed possible, only to have repression reign supreme once again. That could certainly happen with the current rural uprising, with Beijing working aggressively to replace the quest for freedom with the fear of death.

With a governing history of 4,000 years and counting, the Chinese bureaucrats and bosses know how to manipulate the system and stay in power. But there have been some revolutionary years over those 40 centuries, so we can hope.